Harbor Under the Midnight Sun 1937

William H. Johnson made this painting, Harbor Under the Midnight Sun, with oil paint on board, and looking at it feels like watching a scene unfold through feeling. The way he's laid down these colors, especially the thick strokes of orange and yellow, it’s like he’s not just painting what he sees, but how he experiences the light. Check out the way he handles the paint itself. It’s thick, juicy, almost sculptural in places, and then scraped back to nearly nothing in others. See that swirl of blue in the upper right? The paint is laid on so loosely there, it feels like the sky is breathing. And then, just below it, the way he’s built up those fiery mountain shapes feels so physical, so grounded. I'm reminded of Marsden Hartley, another American artist who wasn’t afraid to let his feelings run wild in his paintings, and like Hartley, Johnson's work shows how art can be a place for expressing not just what’s out there, but what’s inside us too. It’s about the ongoing conversation between what we see, what we feel, and what we make.